Reports online suggest MegaLido members are receving paltry refunds of less than 10 percent from the payment processors they used to fund their MegaLido accounts

The precise percentage of the refunds is unclear. What is clear is that MegaLido is yet another autosurf that went bust.

MegaLido was widely promoted by members of AdSurfDaily in the aftermath of the government’s August seizure of ASD’s assets. Promoters pitched it as a safe, offshore alternative — all the while blasting the government for its actions in the ASD case.

MegaLido used multiple payment processors — SolidTrustPay, Strict Pay and AlertPay. Members now are left holding the bag.

One member reported a $13 refund from a $180 stake. Another reported a $26 refund from accumulated paper “profits” of $1,200. Yet another member said he had invested $2,000 and got back about $700, a loss of $1,300.

Even a partial refund is a win or sorts, however. Many autosurfs fail and participants lose their entire stakes. In some cases, autosurf operators remove all or part of the money from their payment-processing accounts, making even partial refunds impossible. In the MegaLido case, it appears as though the payment processors were able to provide partial refunds based on money the operator left in the accounts before his access was blocked.

His name reportedly is Michael, although that’s not for certain. Some MegaLido members have speculated that the autosurf was part of a Nigerian scam, although that’s not for certain. It also has been reported that MegaLido was operating out of Europe. That’s not for certain, either.

What is for certain is that many of the people who played got burned.

One of the most grating things about the MegaLido ads was that promoter’s couldn’t possibly have verified their claims. No autosurf using a Ponzi model is safe, for example. Promoters gushed and gushed about MegaLido, positioning it as the source of gushing profits — but all of it was smoke and mirrors.

MegaLido, positioned as a safe haven and a long-term winner, lasted only weeks.

About the Author

3 Responses
to “MegaLido Members Take A Pounding”

Funny thing with “Paid to Surf” programs. When an online “burnt” ASD friend sent me their sign up link and I logged onto the website, my gut immediately started waving huge red flags, but out of curiousity, I signed on and to do my friend a favor. Only 4 weeks later it was already all over with MegaLido, whe another online friend started shedding tears over her “most probable”loss of $2,000+ from 8daily who had “website problems” at that time and shortly thereafter after shut down forevermore.

People need to invest a $1.00 in a calculator and sit down and use no nonsense math and commonsense to see for themselves 2 things: 1. That none of these “Paid to Surf” programs can mathematically sustain themselves, and 2. since these websites show the number of members, one can easily average of how much money is in “the pot” and at what point the operators are most likely to scoop it up and run. In the case of 8daily, it shut down after the scam hade made $1,000,000 for “Susan” who ran the program and ran with the mill …

As to AVG, the “Evil Twin” of ASD, launching has been delayed to February, eh ? Let it be hoped that the reason for this “Delay” is the fact that people have wised up and more are wising up and this scam can be flagged for the “Doomed” file and end up in the “Failed” trash can.

PLEASE DO NOT GET INVOLVED WITH AVG, nothing proves that Andy Bowdoin is not somehow involved in this puppy, BE WARE !

The size of the pot really is an important point. Thanks for making it.

Let’s say, for instance, that the courts permitted the “rebates aren’t guaranteed” defense to stand. That would be tantamount to giving criminals an unrestricted license to print money.

Start an autosurf. Advertise that rebates aren’t guaranteed and that “ad” purchases are nonrefundable. Set a personal profit target of any amount — say, from $100,000 to $10 million.

As soon as the target amount appears in the pot, run with the money or stop paying rebates. If you exercised your owner’s discretion to stop paying rebates because they weren’t guaranteed, your profit is the entire secret target you set.

Some people will just run with the money. Others will leave the shell of the site, at least so ads backed up in the queue could be displayed.

But where would the audience come from? Most people were there for the rebates.

People know that ASD generated $100 million in sales in a matter of only weeks. ASD collected that amount, even though it told people rebates weren’t guaranteed and “ad” purchases were nonrefundable.

Think about it: If 74-year-old Bowdoin could generate $100 million in tiny Quincy, Fla., what’s to prevent other prospective autosurf operators from ANY location trying? Even if the operator doesn’t approach ASD’s volume, he or she still could produce tremendous revenue.

Some people would make the autosurf criminal by design, running off after the secret profit target was achieved or simply putting an end to rebates and keeping all the money.

This is happening now — even without favorable court rulings. The potential for huge profits is there — and because the very nature of autosurfs is wink-nod — criminals have an incentive to become paid-to-surf operators.

Some of it even may be attributable to Bowdoin envy: If Bowdoin did it, why couldn’t I?

Heck, his example even could serve as a blueprint on how to minimize the risk of getting caught. Those very public rallies at which millions of dollars changed hands did him no favors. Neither did all the videos — from Bowdoin or ASD members.

I saw one video in which a young girl was clicking on ASD ads, explaining it was so easy a five-year-old could do it. In another video, I saw people lining up by the hundreds to purchase “ad packs” at a Las Vegas rally.

People online bragged that ASD was so busy that “volunteers” actually had to help collect the money. This, of course, was completely at odds with how a professional advertising firm would conduct business, but people still bragged about it in their video and other sales pitches.

These things put ASD on the radar screen.

Ever wonder how many people — at this very moment — are fantasizing about starting their own autosurfs, but trying to figure out how to stay under the radar?

Bowdoin put $100 million on the table. The allure of that cannot be dismissed and very likely is motivating others to become players.